Who is to blame? Not us in a one sense - the press find the Blair succession/Cameron story easier to follow. And, under Ming, we are sorting out a lot of our problems:

Quietly, in ways people don't see, he has been getting quite a few things right. I've spoken to a lot of Lib Dem MPs, including many who did not support him as leader, and there is universal praise for the way he is professionalising the party's organisation and campaign techniques. None of this is visible to the public, nor of much interest to the media, but its effects will be felt if it helps the Lib Dems to raise their game at the next election.

In policy, the party has been modernising and trying to address its negatives. They recently produced a balanced approach to prison overcrowding by proposing that life should mean life for dangerous offenders, while fewer of those guilty of less serious crimes should be locked up. By calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, Sir Menzies reminded the public of his party's opposition to the war and successfully anticipated what the government then began to do.

They have come up with detailed proposals for cuts in income tax and higher taxes on polluters which make the Tories and Labour look vague and feeble on green politics. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckon that the sums add up.

It is one of politics' little ironies that we have been given a better idea of what Sir Menzies would do with power than we have got from either David Cameron or Gordon Brown.

He has been good at promoting rising talents, even ones who might be seen as a threat to his position, such as environment spokesman Chris Huhne, who challenged him for the job, and Nick Clegg, the home affairs spokesman, whom many see as a future leader. That generosity to younger stars speaks to his lack of paranoia and maturity as a leader.

One of our problems is that so many Lib Dems don't believe that we have to reform ourselves. There have been some fantastic speeches at conference. But so many play to a limited, well worn, lib dem agenda with little resonance "out there".

Perhaps the best session in the conference was the South Somerset District Council presentation. Lib Dems hasve controlled the council since 1983. The presentied their achievements in terms of enabling local people, spoke of their success in reducing the cost of bureaucracy - it is successful liberal democracy in practice (accompanied with parliamentary success). That sort of agenda does not get enough of a hearing at conference.

Perhaps that is is harsh. Yesterday we modernised our crime and disorder agenda; we stepped back from the brink on nuclear weapons.

I hope Ming uses his speech this lunchtime to invite us on a crusade. We need to get closer to South Somerset, to speak up for people who are fed up of nanny-state, headline-chasing politics.

The State is everywhere these days. As Vince Cable pointed out in the "Waiting for Gordo" fringe meeting this is not because New Labour (aka Gordon Brown) have set out to be evil. Their intentions have been laudable. But good intentions don't get you very far.

Brown's instincts are statist, and so New Labour has meant massive means testing, to the extent that people can hardly hope to save to improve their old age. It means massive surveillance - both for security reasons (ID cards) and "green" reasons (roadpricing). Cameron is tracking back to old-fshioned Tory paternalism (just think how mch time he spends talking of his children - while telling us his private life is "private").

There is a liberal agenda against all this - and for a successful economy.

If we are brave enough to put it forward, who knows how successful we might be? We have been moving slowly in the right direction. It's time to speed things up!